Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Above: NYPD offers tell photographer to stop photographing them; photographer JB Nicholas is at
extreme right in handcuffs. man identified as NFL head of security, Thomas Crowe, who is alleged to
have attacked Nichols, is in blue shirt at left of traffic light pole

Gothamist reports that freelance photographer JB Nicholas was following Thomas Crowe, NFL's head of security — and Commissioner Roger Goodell's driver — in New York on September 17th when Crowe knocked him off his bike twice and ran over his foot with a 2014 Cadillac Escalade, then exited the SUV, tackled him while he was sitting down, punched him in the face, jammed his forearm into his neck and choked him — and allegedly falsely identified himself as a cop, presumably so Nicholas would not fight back.

"I saw the driver get out of his car very aggressively, grab the
photographer, and shout 'You're under arrest, I'm a policeman!'" says
Joshua Holland, who witnessed the encounter while he was walking his
dog. "The driver pulled the photographer off his bike, wrestled him to the
ground in the median, and punched him in the face once. Then he was on
top of him holding him down with an arm bar, a forearm jammed into his
neck," Holland says...Holland, the witness, says he saw the driver exit the vehicle. "The
driver was just in a crazy rage; a lot of people stopped in the street
and were shouting 'get off that guy!' " The police arrived and charged Nicholas with second degree assault, a
felony, and third degree assault and criminal mischief, both
misdemeanors. According to the criminal complaint, Nicholas punched the
SUV driver in the face enough to cause swelling and redness, threw his
bike at the driver and hit his knee, requiring treatment at a hospital,
and keyed the SUV, causing more than $250 in damages. Nicholas says the police on the scene ignored at least two eyewitnesses, who told them that Nicholas was not the aggressor. "Crowe and [the commanding officer] greeted each other with a
handshake and put their arms on each other's shoulders," Nicholas says.
"Then Crowe gets into his car and drives away." ...At New York Presbyterian Hospital, Nicholas says he was given some
Advil and told that nothing was broken. At the 17th Precinct, he gave a
written statement to detectives, and returned from a bathroom break to
see a detective tearing up his statement and throwing it in the trash. ...The Daily News retained [attorney Jeffrey] Emdin to
represent Nicholas.
Emdin says that the name of Nicholas's complainant was removed from
the complaint report, so technically he does not know who is pressing
charges against his client. An NFL spokesman referred a request for comment to the NYPD and the
DA.

RELATED: Moto X, Nokia, HTC One M8 and smaller iPhone 6 get the bend test too...Tom's Guide, the sister publication of the venerable website, Tom's Hardware, says the iPhone 6 has a serious camera problem — and the cause may not be the phone or camera hardware.
Testers repeatedly found white balance problems on three different iPhone 6s involving chromatic aberration revealing a purple cast around edges of the picture as well as the same purple cast in some light-colored objects such as Caucasian hands.

Apple iPhone 6 (left) vs. Samsung Galaxy S5

Lest you think you can escape the problem by purchasing an iPhone 5, read this:

We saw similar problems in photos and videos from an iPhone 5 and 5s
that were running the new iOS 8 operating system. But we did not see the
color issues with an iPhone 5 and 5s running iOS 7, which leads us to
believe that Apple may be able to fix the color problem by issuing an
update to iOS 8.

The publication found Apple's speculation about the problem less than persuasive:

In reviewing some of our test photos, Apple representatives said that
the colors may have shifted as the result of changing content in
different photos. But that's not how white balance works. It takes
account of the color of light falling on the subjects, not on the
assortment of subjects in a photo. Regardless of what else is happening
in the shot, red peppers should never look purple, and white hands
shouldn't turn pink.

The C3 at the top has terrible acceleration and tuning it is both time consuming and expensive. On the other hand,the C3 at the bottom has a shorter wheelbase and performance drastically suffers with two people are using it.

NOTE: the headline for this post was edited after a reader pointed out that Abington, PA is in Montgomery, not Bucks, county.
Guess Bucks County [and/or Montgomery County — Ed.] police officers are between a rock and a hard place explaining tweets of suspected gay-basher Kathryn Knott, daughter of Chalmont's Chalfont's police chief: either she's a social media liar or her tweets revealed police misconduct.

Knott's father, Karl, was hired as the police chief of Chalfont in January. In 2012, when he was on Abington's police force, his daughter's tweets were investigated as they seemed to indicate misconduct on the part of her father. Abington Police Chief William Kelly says nothing indicated the tweets were true.

The tweets that drew the attention of Abington police are both from 2012:Dec. 18, 2012: @garlicknott dad just let me kick down a door on a raid #epicIn an interview Thursday, Kelly said Kathryn
Knott did accompany her father on a “ride-along” and during that shift
police officers were dispatched to a “well-being check.”...Kelly
stressed that she never got out of the car and would have never been
allowed to “kick in” a door....In the second tweet, from March 21, 2012, Kathryn
Knott posted: A guy ran me off the road, called my dad ran his license,
and got him ticket #sorrynotsorry #lovemydadKelly said police investigated the allegation
that Karl Knott had looked up the license plate and issued a ticket on
his daughter’s behalf, but found nothing to indicate there is any truth
to what she posted on social media.

Three suspects have now been arrested in the beating, including the daughter of a Pennsylvania police chief who has been suspended for the way she alleged gets her nocturnal kicks as well as for being suspected of violating HIPPA regulations by tweeting confidential patient information.
Her tweets also reveal a pronounced distaste for even those gays she chooses not to allegedly pummel with high heeled footwear.
Her attorney describers her as a "kind and gentle person" who "couldn't bust a grape" and who "completely denies having touched anyone," an interesting denial which presumably would not preclude flailing with a shoe at someone who ended up in a two-foot pool of blood on a City of Brotherly Love sidewalk..

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Below Carlos Mana of MediaMatters4America debunks the playbook of antigay groups like the Nebraska Family Alliance and its supporters.

To illustrate how predictable, coordinated and phony these ideological attacks are, check out the antigay smearstestimony below during 2013's hearing for Lincoln's LGBT fairness ordinance.The antigay testimony was largely orchestrated by the Nebraska Family Alliance, then known as the Nebraska Family Council. For example, the woman at 8:43 is actually the sister of Hannah Buell, a Nebraska Family Alliance operative, who falsified the Crystal Dixon case in order to portray anti-LGBT activists as victims.
The LGBT nondiscrimination additions were subsequently passed 5-0 by the Lincoln City Council, but then rescinded after Catholic and Evangelical Protestant churches (and the Nebraska Family Council) collected thousands of repeal signatures.Note: because of an uploading glitch, the video is black and silent between about 34:32 and 40:52.)
A favorite ploy of homophobes (#5 on the above list) is the spectre of transgender pedophiles/rapists, or pedophiles/rapists claiming to be transgender invading women's bathrooms. You see that ruse employed over and over again below.
Left unsaid, of course, is the fact that anyone can walk into an unlocked public restroom for either gender with or without LGBT antidiscrimination legislation.

Uganda's president (for nearly 30 years and counting), Yoweni Museveni,happily signed a draconian anti-LGBT bill last year, saying it was necessary because "arrogant and careless Western groups" had tried to
"recruit" Ugandan children into homosexuality.
The law made it illegal to fail to report gay people to authorities, criminalized "promotion" of homosexuality, imposed penalties of 14 years in jail on first-time homosexual "offenders" and life for acts of "aggravated homosexuality."
After the popular LGBT publication Dallas Voice exposed Museveni in Texas for what he is, area hotels refused him and his party reservations. Last Sunday, at a private ranch near Allen, he made clear his intent to exact revenge on his country's LGBT citizens as some sort of twisted payback for the impudence of Texans who dared to slight him in their own state.

One Ugandan...said Museveni threatened to take revenge
on his country’s LGBT citizens for his treatment in Dallas. “I was told that Dallas is full of homosexuals and lesbians,” he
reportedly told the people gathered to meet with him. “I didn’t know
they were so powerful.” He mentioned being refused reservations at area hotels after Dallas Voice reported on his plans. Then came the threats. “I wish I knew what to do with them,” Museveni said. And the dictator intent on LGBT genocide said he’d show us what happens to homosexuals when he gets home. We know Museveni was given a visa to enter the U.S. to attend a U.N.
conference this week, but such visas to the U.N. are often restricted to
New York City. Our question is, why is a head of state allowed to
travel around the U.S. and make veiled threats of murder?

Monday, September 22, 2014

Everyone scorches the cosmetic ad vehicle, but Oliver torches it, along the way busting the organization's deceptive claim that it "provides" $45 million in scholarships. Oliver's staff found out that "provdes" is defined differently by the organization than "awards."
Sadly, he did not touch on this year's Miss Nebraska underwear exposé

Above: security camera footage of former AssistantBasketball coach Fran McGlinn just before beatdown of gaycouple in downtown Philly. The Archdiocese says he resigned.

Archbishop Charles Chaput insisted that his Catholic high school forms students “to respect the dignity of every human person whether we agree with them or not" and that his school doesn't "condone the violent and hateful behavior" exhibited by the drunk group of Wood alumni who beat down a gay couple in the street in downtown Philly after partying at an upscale restaurant.
The antigay Christer group Repent America got Pennsylvania's 2002 hate crime law thrown out on a technicality in 2008.
There is already a twitter group running interference for McGlinn, but they don't seem to be very good at persuading other twitter users:

Television eats people up and spits them out, especially when the talent is up against the rigors of filling up an hour a day.
For years Ellen DeGeneres' singular brilliance has been watered down by the medium in a show AKSARBENT almost never watches, as it is an endless parade of pablum, take-off-your-shirt titillation, and above all, salesmanship.
But the other day, Degeneres put a healthy flash of comedic genius on display in this kid segment.
This is what the very best comedy looks like: organic, clever, spontaneous yet perfectly timed, totally original — and very, very funny. Degeneres still has it. (AKSARBENT would love to see Degeneres hand a kid an "old" dial Ericofon, like the one pictured on the right.)(Via Towleroad) http://www.towleroad.com/2014/09/ellen-introduces-kids-to-old-technology-video.html

We now eagerly await ads by carmakers sincerely* warning about the forthcoming misuse of all those internet / music consoles on new autos which are poised to contribute to thousands of crashes by drivers easily amused by attractive nuisances.
On the plus side, said crashes will also require replacement vehicle purchases by those lucky enough to escape death or serious maiming. We say "plus side" because as we all know, what's good for GM is good for America.
___________________
* "sincerely" in the sense of a Casino greeter wishing an entering sucker "Good Luck."

The Omaha World-Herald, your Christian newspaper, did a pretty good imitation of a fan-dancing stripper with something to hide in its story on Cosmos host Neil deGrasse Tyson, in town to address Atheists at Apostacon
The newspaper waited until the second-to-last of 15 paragraphs in its story to mention the "A" word.
Here are a couple of the evasive teases:

...But more than 1,000 people rose and cheered for Neil
deGrasse Tyson on Friday night in Omaha — and that was even before he
started speaking...Tyson hit some serious topics during his talk, such as the
importance of the scientific method. But he drew laughs and applause
throughout the evening as he riffed on things...

World-Herald headline

Finally, Nebraska's biggest newspaper steeled itself and its god-fearing readers for the Big Reveal in paragraphs 15 and 16:

He was opening night speaker at Apostacon, a conference for atheists and other nonbelievers. The conference continues today through Sunday at the downtown Doubletree Hotel Omaha.

Friday, September 19, 2014

Some gay activists regard the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the biggest, richest gay advocacy organization in the U.S., as carpet­baggers who often lag Lambda Legal, the ACLU and various marriage equality organizations in fighting for LGBT equal rights.
HRC often is likened to a huge donation vacuum which swoops in like hungry buzzards (mixed metaphor!) after other groups have done the heavy lifting. In fact, just today HuffPost Gay Voices published this paint-peeling blast at HRC from a Tennessee man:

...We reached out to your organization for support for the work we were
doing, but no one so much as returned a phone call until we had national
media for an event. Welcome to the South, but this is not
a new frontier. Take some time to get to know the local communities who
have been building bridges, winning and losing campaigns, and making a
difference for generations. Enter these communities with humility and a
beginner's mind. And please, please don't erase the rich history and
culture of the queer South just because you finally started paying
attention.

Thursday, September 18, 2014

UPDATE: Scottish election returns, with 31 of 32 constituencies declared, indicated that separatists won 45% of the vote and the Better Together faction, 55%. A poll of Grindr users in Edinburgh (a link is in the last paragraph of this post) predicted a 54-46 split favoring unionists — practically a dead-on-the-money forecast.

Anyone who’s sat up watching the TV on election night knows there’s a
pattern to how things go: before the polls close, early in the evening,
broadcasters assiduously say as little as possible to avoid breaking
election broadcasting rules. Then comes 10pm, and the polls close. Moments later, the anchor behind the desk (almost always a Dimbleby of some description) gives the results of the exit poll – often the only bit of red meat to talk about for the next several hours. Except, as the polls close in the Scottish referendum, this won’t
happen – as neither the BBC nor any other media outlet has bothered to
pay to get one done. Exit polls are the best form of voting-related data we can ever get
our hands on. They’re collected by large numbers of researchers standing
outside polling stations and asking tens of thousands of people how
they voted – as well as collecting a little demographic information,
such as age, gender, race or social class. The most visible outlet for the results of this (quite expensive)
work is in the first hours after polls close: it gives a snapshot of the
result while the laborious work of actually counting the votes is done.As we won’t start to see the referendum results start to trickle in
until at least 2am, without an exit poll broadcasters will have to fill
the first four hours of their coverage with … what, exactly? This “poll” of Grindr users might be as good as anything else we’ve got...

The Guardian reference is to Tumbler blogger MachoTrouts, who polled 655 Edinburg Grindr users about their opinion on Scottish Independence. Go here for the results. At left are some of the more entertaining screenshots.

Gerard Butler, also Scottish, was asked about the upcoming
referendum on Scottish Independence at the premiere ofHow To Train Your Dragon 2. Neither Ferguson nor Butler
would comment.

IBNLive posed the question during an interview with two of Hollywood's most famous Scots, Gerard Butler and Craig Ferguson, who were promoting How to Train Your Dragon 2 (which, incidentally, has been favorably reviewed by most critics.) We suspect Ferguson, for all his anti-English mockery, isn't really voting for Scottish independence, but would be happy to be proved wrong.

Q: What are your thoughts on Scotland's proposed independence from the United Kingdom ahead of September's referendum?
Butler: That's a tough one. We have our views, but you know -
(looking at Ferguson) he's just shutting off at this. We'll be casting
our vote.

Karl Rove, the shameless maestro of political deception, is now running interference for Iowa U.S. Senate candidate Joni Ernst by attacking Keystone XL opponent Bruce Braley as a billionaire's tool. The attack-ad slush fund he started, American Crossroads, is organized as a 501 (C) (4) "social welfare" organization that doesn't have to disclose the identity of its GOP wealthy donors.

GOP politicians in the pocket of TransCanada lately have been comparing the proposed Keystone XL pipeline to Hoover Dam. Not even close, as the chart at left, prepared by ThinkProgress shows.

Thursday, September 11, 2014

From left: Kansas and Nebraska GOP Secy's of State
Kris Kobach and John Gale

In Kansas, homophobic Secretary of State Kris Kobach has refused to remove from the statewide ballot Democrat Chad Taylor, who withdrew in favor of a better-polling independent challenger to incumbent GOP U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts, 78.
Kobach said Taylor's name must retain on the ballot (which would split the progressive vote, favoring the GOP) because Kansas state law limits when party nominees are allowed to withdraw.

So does a statute in Nebraska, but Secretary of State John Gale has imperiously told media that the law "wasn't the last word" on the situation, which is as follows:

On September 9th, after his sister took out a protection order
against him over his behavior over his still-living mother's estate, Lt.
Gov. Lavon Heidemann withdrew from office and as the running mate of
Ameritrade scion and GOP gubernatorial candidate Pete Ricketts; within
hours Pete Ricketts named State Auditor Mike Foley as his
running mate. Nebraska statutes forbid such ballot changes after
September first.

Gale noted that there is judicial case law in Nebraska which allowed for
a substitution of a candidate after a withdrawal deadline, which was
September 1 in this case, and indicated that the constitutional argument
presented by the Ricketts’ campaign was persuasive. Neb. Const. art. IV
§1 vests exclusive authority in the candidate for governor to select a
person to be the candidate for lieutenant governor on the general
election ballot.

AKSARBENT isn't a lawyer, but this seems weak. Ricketts already made his choice; Nebraska statutes don't appear to grant him the prerogative for a redo after the state-mandated deadline.

Michael Fenner, a constitutional law professor at Creighton University School of Law, said the Nebraska Constitution does give Ricketts the right to name his running mate, but he also said the Legislature clearly has the authority to set election deadlines. He also questioned how Gale could issue an opinion after hearing from only from one side of the argument — Ricketts’.

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

AKSARBENT had no idea Kathy Griffin had a talk show and that it was pretty good — we know her only as the worst standup comic since Lisa Lampenelli.
The understandable confusion starts at the 25:00 mark of the this video, although if you start there you'll miss a lot of Darren Criss.

Sunday, September 7, 2014

Osmond was an unbelievably good sport about being sexually harassed interviewed by Stern.

Though Osmond has the condescending disapproval of gay people typical of many Mormons, at which we can only sneer, he is also deserving of a great deal of sympathy from those who should be glad they didn't have his life, one from which any sensible person would recoil. When pressed, Osmond can be painfully honest, but he isn't whiny.
While still a teenager, starring in ABC-TV's briefly popular (and mostly execrable) Donnie and Marie show with his sister, he was making $25,000 per episode, but never saw the money, which went to the family corporation. That firm narrowly avoided bankruptcy not long after ABC cancelled the variety program. About $60 million disappeared. At the 36:56 marker in a stark, poignant video here with Piers Morgan, Osmond said he if he had it all to do over, he wouldn't — and neither would have his siblings.

Saturday, September 6, 2014

...In his latest book, Against Football,
Almond explains why he is ditching the sport for good. His moral qualms
with football are multifaceted. There is the toll football takes on the
players’ bodies and brains. There is what Almond calls the NFL’s
nihilistic greed: “Do they feel no shame in snatching taxpayer money
they don’t really need from impoverished communities?” he writes. But
beyond that, Almond worries that football negatively influences
America’s attitudes about violence, hyper-masculinity, racism and
homophobia.

From the unanimous decision from the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which also struck down Wisconsin's ban, written by three judges appointed by Clinton, Obama and Reagan:

Indiana’s government thinks that straight couples tend to be sexually irresponsible, producing unwanted children by the carload, and so must be pressured (in the form of governmental encouragement of marriage through a combination of sticks and carrots) to marry, but that gay couples, unable as they are to produce children wanted or unwanted, are model parents—model citizens really—so have no need for marriage. Heterosexuals get drunk and pregnant, producing unwanted children; their reward is to be allowed to marry. Homosexual couples do not produce unwanted children; their reward is to be denied the right to marry. Go figure.
...The state should want homosexual couples who adopt children—as, to repeat, they are permitted to do—to be married, if it is serious in arguing that the only governmental interest in marriage derives from the problem of accidental births. (We doubt that it is serious.)

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

A lush score. Beautiful cinematography. Stunning moments of magical realism. Infused with sharp wit and irony, without cynicism. A delight from the first frame until the last, AKSARBENT thinks Arvin Chen's Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow is 2013's best film of gay interest.
Chen is a director raised in the the U.S. and he has made the film that is everything that Brokeback Mountain director Ang Lee's first gay film, The Wedding Banquet, wasn't.
The two trailers below seem to depict two different films, a common ploy used to sell a film to different demographic groups, but in the case of Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow, neither trailer misrepresents this well-made, multi-layered and immensely satisfying movie.
The film further burnishes the status of the Carol King/Gerry Goffin evergreen as one of the greatest pop songs of the 20th Century. Covered by an astonishing variety of artists, the standard's enduring popularity never seems to wane — it just waxes.
(Wikipedia erroneously says Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow was the first #1 song by a girl group, a preposterous claim busted by Wiki's own entry for the Andrews Sisters.)

Maynard (Bob "Gilligan's Island" Denver) slyly flashes a nipple to the CBS eye while trying to talk his best buddy Dobie Gillis (Dwayne Hick­man) into taking off all his clothes. Whoever said 1950s television was a vast waste­land obviously didn't know where to look.